Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Celebrates 25th Anniversary of Hamburg’s “Blast On The Beach”

Earlier today, Governor Hochul celebrated the 25th Anniversary of Hamburg’s “Blast on the Beach.”

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page will have photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

This is actually more emotional than I thought it would be. It was 25 years ago when an extraordinary Town Board worked as cohesively as you've ever seen in government. And I'm joined by many of them. Jim Connolly, probably the Highway Superintendent at the time — former Town Board Member. Joan Kesner is here. Mark Cavalcoli has joined us. Tom Quatroche would be here, but he is out visiting his son in LA — I gave a pass for that. But also Cathy Rybczynski, who was our Town Clerk at the time, this was the dream team of elected officials, but we were always buoyed by outstanding public servants. And I want to give a special recognition to Rosemary McManus, who was the brainchild of so much of what we did in our community to bring people together.

And there are so many others who are no longer with us. I think of George Lee, the former Deputy Mayor of Blasdell, was part of our committee, but we pulled together a group of people — and what are we going to call it? The Town Rejuvenation Project was an idea that came forward, and I cannot tell you what it meant to me to see so many people 25 years later still proudly wearing the same name in the T-shirts that brought us here today, but many other projects.

This event was supposed to be one year, it was to celebrate the millennial, year 2000, right? And then we did it. Rosemary, we're good. We did a lot of work. Great. We'll see you next millennial. But everybody said what about next year and next year? And it became one of those traditions, and I could not be prouder here today. We've had a lot of ups and downs — even with this event. I'll never forget one of the early years where we were like, where are the guys with the fireworks? Shouldn’t they be setting up about now? We were doing fireworks. We advertised fireworks. Where's the fireworks? Get a phone call. Fireworks guy, I'm in Hamburg. I don't know where you are. He goes, I'm at the Chevron station. What Chevron? What are you talking about? He goes, “I can't find you.” He turns out he was in Hamburg, Pennsylvania, which is near Philadelphia. So, he hightailed it up here. He made it. We went off a little bit late. We're all out there, probably not legally, but planting fireworks in the ground because the show must go on. And that's just one example of what it meant to me to get this to be a celebration so our community could come together.

And we found so many different ways, whether it's for the little kids to come for their very first community gathering. What I loved was the teenagers on the beach. We had them dancing and having a great time. And the senior citizens who could sit on the hill with a hot dog and watch the sunset. The reason this meant so much to me was because it symbolized community, and that's one of the reasons I'm so proud that my 3-year-old granddaughter has joined us. Her first big event, my son Will, and New York's first ever First Gentleman is my husband Bill, because I wanted her to see where I come from, where we come from, and how it so dramatically affected my life going forward.

I always take the lessons I learned of public service working with so many of you all the way to corridors of our Capital in Albany, and can't tell you how many times I referenced when I was on the Town Board, we did it this way when I was on the Town Board, we listened to the people when I was on the Town Board. They get tired of it, but it was a profoundly defining experience for me, and I'm so proud that I was able to be a Council Member for 14 years. I loved every minute of it. And to be able to create something like this and have it endure for a quarter of a century makes me prouder than you can ever believe.

So, thank you everyone for the warm homecoming today. And with that, I want to present a proclamation in honor of 25 years, and my team writes really long proclamations. Rosemary used to write proclamations for us — a little bit shorter. 25th Anniversary of Hamburg’s “Blast on the Beach.” And you have a nice long proclamation, anybody here want me to read this? I didn't think so. Okay. Alright. You can all read it in a few minutes, but I want to present this to you and I'd love for my former elected officials from the Town Board and Rosemary to join us here as we present this to the supervisor, Cathy Rybczynski.